


lay down at my altar, & maybe i’ll find yours too

by kitmarlowe



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Melancholy, Mild Smut, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Purple Prose, Romance, also a dash of yearning, bc I’m that bitch, like blink and you’ll miss it, no beta pls forgive my sins, realized I forgot that tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25256482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowe/pseuds/kitmarlowe
Summary: At the end of the war, they become but memories to each other, fading ever so slowly over days, months, years…aka: 2500 words of angst that I wrote after finishing the Golden Deer route bc it’s rly just a rite of passage in this fandom
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 11
Kudos: 35





	lay down at my altar, & maybe i’ll find yours too

The evening after Fodlan’s Unification Day brings clear winds and cold air, and just the hint of frost threatening to turn to snow. The day had been steeped in ceremony and rites, with rulers from all over Fodlan and outside gathering in the square for three straight nights of feasting, revelry, and glory. Now, at half past 1, Garreg Mach is finally quiet again. By tomorrow, all their visitors will trickle out, and the monastery will be quiet again. 

Byleth stands at her open window, overlooking the gates, and thinks she can hardly believe it’s been five years, and also that it can’t have  _ only _ been five years. Her life before Fodlan seems too distant for her to know anything else. 

Sometimes, she still aches for battle. For the feel of sweat consuming her body and fire licking at her skin. Then she reminds herself that she does not ache for death anymore, nor does she desire to see death again. 

In the distance, the gates open catch her eye. She frowns, thinking it’s quite late to be opening to anyone. Securing her robe around, she grabs her sword absently. In reality, she knows it’s likely just the watch changing, but her interest has peaked. 

She winds through the quiet halls of Garreg Mach, only the echoes of her footsteps guiding her. Most of the torches are unlit this late at night, casting the entire place in shadow. She almost prefers it, knowing that no one can see her. It had been a long time since no one noticed her walk by. 

Outside, a blast of cool air hits her face, chilling her to her toes. From here, she can now see a group gathered in front of the gatekeepers, and just outside, a small huddle of wyverns, patiently waiting. 

It occurs to her that none of the lords she knows uses this many wyverns on a daily basis, at the same time she realizes that she does know  _ one _ , who she hasn’t seen in quite some time. 

Oddly, her next thought is that Seteth will be mad they didn’t send notice they were arriving. And  _ then _ he’ll be mad that they missed the entire festival that he planned. 

“My lady!” the gatekeeper startles as she draws closer to confirm her suspicions. “I was just welcoming our guests.”

“I see that.” Byleth scans the group. “Claude, you could have sent word.” Her voice sounds cool, even to her own ears. 

A ghost wrought out of the night itself, Claude steps into the firelight. A signature grin stretches across his face. “Actually, it’s King Riegan now, Teach,” he says, with a wink.

“And it’s Archbishop now, King Riegan,” she says, amused. 

“Ah, I was always bad at formalities. Let me try again.” He sweeps a grand bow, hand to heart, and when he rises, he’s completely serious. “My Lady, I would hate to stand on ceremony with you. My name is yours, as always. And though I have been terribly rude showing up at your doorstep so late, I felt I had to pay honor to Fodlan before the day was over.” 

She crosses her arms, and tries to look as nonchalant as a woman in a robe, carrying a sword, and with no shoes can look. She’s not sure she succeeds. Powering through the moment, she says, “This is quite a surprise.” 

“Well.” Claude spreads his hands. “I always liked surprises.”

Byleth eyes him, still trying to process that he’s actually there. With hair so long, and braided in the typical Almyran fashion. Her fingers itch to step over and undo it. “I remember,” she says, unthinkingly. 

Claude blinks. He parts his mouth and Byleth can’t help but stare. Before he can say anything else though, one of his guards coughs behind him and the gatekeeper turns back to Byleth. “My lady, shall I continue admitting them?”

Byleth clears her suddenly dry throat. “Yes, continue.” She eyes the gatekeeper, and then Claude’s coterie of soldiers, and makes a decision that she will likely regret. “A cup of tea, perhaps, before you retire for the evening?”

Claude’s smile is brilliant. “It’ll be just like old times.”   


* * *

They adjourn to tea in her quarters, directly next to her bedroom, because Byleth, if she can’t have war, will apparently find other ways to self-destruct. In this case, it is sharing a late night cup of tea with another King.

In odd moments like this, she often thinks about what Edelgard or Dimitri would say about appearances or respectability or showing good leadership. And then she immediately regrets it because both of them are dead, by her own doing, and don’t have time to chastise her about a mildly scandalous cup of tea. Byleth is still in her robe, her sword only a few feet from her. Claude has long since discarded his riding gear and outer coat, leaving only a long sleeve white shirt, gaping at the neck and his riding pants. Byleth sips her tea, trying to avoid gazing at the collarbone on display, and then immediately trying to avoid showing she burned her entire mouth. 

“You remembered my favorite.” Claude sets down his cup, while Byleth is in the midst of figuring out if her tongue turned to ash. 

“A lucky guess.” Ah it still works. 

Claude leans forward, head cradled in his hand. His collarbone stretches with him. “You never trusted luck,” he says. “That’s why I always admired you. You always had Plan A and B and Plan Z up your sleeve.”

“Even if Plan Z was just throwing my sword at people?” Byleth says dryly. 

Claude shrugs. “It’s still a plan that worked.” 

Byleth hums, unconvinced. “If anything, you were always the one three steps ahead of me.”

“Call it killer instinct.” 

“Sure.” Byleth pauses, examining her cup of tea. “So you finally did it. You united Almyra. It’s odd, because the last thing we heard was that Almyra was entangled in civil war. The routes had been closed off for ages.”

The air around them changes as Claude shifts backward in his seat. “That’s true.” Claude hesitates, crossing his arms in front of him now. “It wasn’t pretty, Byleth. But that was to be expected.”

Byleth has seen many faces of Claude, but right now, in the dim light of the moon, she thinks this is the first time she has found him completely unreadable. She aches to reach out and grab his hand, but forces herself not to. “I’m sure you did what you had to do,” she says quietly. 

“Did I?” Claude pauses. “Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes, I—nevermind.” He cuts himself off, and pastes a grin across his face. “But you’re doing well, Teach! No one’s killing each other over here.”

Byleth has half a mind to prod. But it’s too late, and the grin stretched across his face already seems to be fading. “You’re right. Fodlan did okay for itself.” 

“You did all of it.” 

“You would never have let me live it down if I didn’t.”

“No,” Claude agrees. “I wouldn't have.” 

Beat. 

“Claude, why did you come here?” she asks, finally. 

“Didn’t you want to see me?”

“Claude.”

He heaves a sigh, tugging at the open collar of his shirt. ‘You did invite us, Teach,” he says.

“You didn’t send a messenger back in response,” Byleth points out. 

“I was never good at writing.” A lie if Byleth had ever heard one. 

“You’re six hours late to the actual day,” she says, instead.

Claude reaches over the table. His fingers graze over just the top of her palm, barely brushing against it. “What if… what if I just wanted to tell you in person that I was coming?”

“Claude, you’ve never done anything without an ulterior motive in your life.”

“That is a bold accusation and hurts my feelings!” Claude pouts, and it’s somehow, an attractive look on him. “Besides, I would never hide anything from you."

Byleth huffs out a laugh that's half exasperated and half amused. "Then I should just take you at your word at all times?"

"Oh definitely not. I thought you learned that in school. Never trust me with anything." 

"I suppose if you're not lying at least ten percent of the time than you're not really Claude," Byleth says.

"That's right."

Byleth shakes her head. "You're still the same, aren't you Claude?"

"Never changed at all," he agrees, tapping one finger across his nose.

Definitely a lie. She doesn't call him on it though, glad that the atmosphere is more relaxed again. Claude leans back into his chair, his hands drumming unconsciously across the table. She thinks that Claude might lie constantly, unthinkingly, but he’s never been able to lie with his body. His body is always too attentive, too poised to move again. Even now leaning back, every muscle of his body seems tensed. 

There was a time—well. Not worth thinking about that. She clears her throat, and says, “It’s late, why don’t I show you, your room?”

Claude considers her from his seat, green eyes sharper than they have been. “Is that what you want?” 

“When has what I wanted ever been a consideration?” Byleth means for it to sound sardonic, but somehow it lands flatly. She heaves a sigh and waved a hand. “Look at that! Seteth’s and Lindhart’s moods have rubbed off on me. Come, Claude! I know from past experience that you need your beauty sleep.”

“Byleth.” Claude’s standing now, and lord, he’s gotten taller. Byleth licks her lips, thinking that she should really de-escalate this. Quickly. 

And yet. She’s desperately curious to see what he’ll do. She always has been. 

Byleth, as it turns out, is still terrible at taking the safer choice. 

He steps forward, and her back is to the door, and she has nowhere else to go. Her body moves of its own accord—she steps with him, until there is but a breath of space between them. She can see the freckles dotting his nose, and a thin scar running from chin to chin; smell the leather from his boots and the oil that he uses on his armor. Unthinkingly, she grabs his hands, intertwining her fingers in his, noting the new callouses, categorizing everything she doesn’t remember. 

She doesn’t know who moves first, or if they simply fall into each other together. His mouth catches hers, slow and hesitant at first, and then urgently. 

Kissing Claude is like holding the sun against her. He’s bright and burning and his hands are everywhere, gripping tightly at her hips, running down her sides, pushing her gently to the bed. She feels consumed by him, wants to feel more of him. She lets herself fall on the bed, grabbing at his waist to pull him closer. His lips graze at her neck, biting down gently and she shudders into him, even as she finds the edges of his shirt. 

When he takes her, it’s sweet and smooth, and her entire body feels like it might set aflame. “ _ God, Byleth,”  _ he groans into her skin over and over again. It's too much,  _ all of it too much— _ she digs her nails deep into his back, just to hear him hiss out in shock over her. When she bites down into his shoulder, he cries out her name, and she feels his entire body release, dropping heavy onto her.

All is quiet for a moment, other than the soft sound of them breathing. Byleth traces over the scratches she left in his back, down past his shoulder blade, to the middle of his spine, to the narrow hollow of his hip, finding more and more scars than she remembered. His body is so familiar but so different now, and her heart aches to think that it had seen more pain and suffering with others now than it had with her. There had been a time she had known him better than anyone. When she could map the surface of his skin without even touching it, or trade a glance and know exactly what he was going to say. Now his body has grown harder and alien, barely matching with her image of him. He is both the Claude that she had loved and fought in war with and the Claude that had abandoned her to become King to another people. He is both and neither, and now he is here, and she has no idea which Claude had decided to sleep with her. Soon he will be gone again and it will be too late to figure out, and she knows it will be like this forever. Over the years they will grow farther and farther from the people they were, and yet never know the people that they  _ are _ , but desperately try to grasp for each other. She is addicted to a memory of a person that she still loves and somehow can’t stop loving. 

Claude runs a hand down her arm, jolting her back to the present. “You’re thinking too loudly.” 

She slips out from underneath him, cleans herself up, and throws on a robe. Robe secured, she turns back to him with her head held high. “You should go.” 

Claude stretches languidly, every single muscle seeming to ripple. He rolls over to the edge of the bed, planting his legs wide on the floor. Byleth quirks an eyebrow. “What if I get lonely?”

“I suspect you’ll live.” 

He doesn’t make a move, instead leaning his elbows into his knees. “By.”

Byleth wraps her arms around herself, turning to look out the window. The night is clear, without a single star looking down at them. There would be no word from any gods tonight. Just her and Claude. “It’s been years since we last saw each other.”

“I know.”

“I’ve slept with others, you know,” she says.

This time he doesn’t reply, and her heart twists, because she knows he’s likely been with countless others too. She wonders if his lovers ever feel like pale imitations of their first love, or if it’s easier to erase that love slowly, but surely. Instead, she pivots: “I was ready to forget you.”

“Then why are you still wearing your ring?”

Byleth tears her gaze from the window. Claude doesn’t look so mischievous anymore, a seriousness pulling at the edges of his faces. She steps forward, pulled inexorably toward him, hands coming to rest on the edge of his jaws. He inhales sharply as she lightly strokes across, smoothing out the wrinkles of his skin, trying to erase the age and tiredness lingering beneath his smile that she hadn’t bothered to notice before. She wonders in that moment what  _ exactly  _ he had done to secure his Kingdom. At the same time, she doubts she’ll ever find out. And yet, she thinks she can imagine well enough. After all, he is still Claude, and she knows exactly what she would have done in his position. 

“Why are you still wearing yours?” she murmurs. 

One of Claude’s hand comes to cover hers, the white of his ring brightly gleaming against his brown skin. “You know why,” he says.

She hums, leaning her forehead against his. “What if we ran away together?” The words tumble out of her lips, and she already regrets them. His hands tighten around hers.

“Just say the word,” he says. 

Her heart clenches. She parts her mouth, but no words come. 

Instead, she surges forward pressing her mouth back to his, his hands automatically tangling in her hair. If it is a mistake, it’s a mistake that goes directly to her core. His fingers easily undo her robe and she is bare again against him. “You’re still the only one I dream about,” he breathes into her breast, and it’s so easy to believe him. 

She digs deeper scratches into his chest the second time, and he leaves more marks on her. It  _ may  _ just be for tonight, but if Byleth has it her way, he’ll scar forever. When she comes, his name leaves her lips like an oath that she would like to forget. 

Byleth falls asleep to Claude humming a melody she will never quite be able to remember again in her ear.   


* * *

When she wakes the next morning, the bed is painfully empty. Were it not for the ache in her limbs, the scratches across her skin, she thinks it might have been a dream. She still thinks it might be; she tries to grasp for the memory, but all that comes to mind are already faded pictures. 

The only concrete proof that he was there is a single note in his scratchy scrawl, that she almost throws away, before folding away into her desk: 

_ wait. until next year. _

(She regrets to say that she does, and year after year, they meet on the same night, at the same hour, their union a ritual in of itself. She becomes an altar to be visited, and he, a passing knight in the distance. Time carries them constantly to the same place.  _ Nothing changes, nothing changes _ . Their selves blur, until they are something else entirely. Perhaps they are just an act of love; perhaps they are the stories of each other that they tell themselves. Perhaps they are nothing more than who they were when a war ended. Nothing more, nothing less.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have been sitting on this for months and just wanted to get rid of it !!!! Hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading xxxo


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